Weekend Trip - Milwaukee

Hello! We spent the past weekend in Milwaukee, with the main attraction this time being the art museum there. However, lunch called before we got our dose of culture:

My shredded beef tacos kept me filled all day! From Jalapeno Loco, located near Milwaukee's Mitchell Airport.

We went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to view Accidental Genius - Art From The Anthony Petullo Collection. This exhibit features the works of American and European self-taught artists. The works were often of a very quirky nature: paintings done on cardboard, massive amounts of illustrations and collages left undiscovered until after the artists had died, and artistic talents uncovered in an Austrian psychiatric clinic.

Couldn't take photos in the exhibit gallery, but could in the rest of the museum, so what follows are a few works that caught my fancy:

Modern sculpture, using clear buttons and glue. The tallest "spire" was probably close to four feet tall. The amount of buttons used to create this piece must have been staggering!

Detail of an Impressionist painting.

 

One of the masters of French Impressionism, Renoir.

Pastoral scene from the 19th C.

Going centuries back, the Devil and his ilk are getting their due from a band of fighting angels. From the 1400's - I love medieval art, especially that from the later period such as the piece above.

Besides art, there were other "masterpieces" to be had on our trip - both south of Milwaukee, which made them convenient to our route.

We always try to stop at the Jelly Belly factory outlet store, located near Pleasant Prairie, WI (just over the border from IL):

 

As the sign behind the Jelly Belly decoration indicated, there were bargains galore to be had. If one didn't mind out of season candies from Christmas and Valentine's Day, there were numerous case sales going on. But our daughter and I limited ourselves to the always-available Belly Flops (irregular Jelly Bellies in a variety of flavors) and the Hodgepodge Mix (a variety of candies in each bag).


The outlet store is a lot of fun to visit. One of the most popular places in the store is probably the Sample Bar, where employees patiently dole out free samples to eager visitors.

Not sure about the popularity of one Jelly Belly display which held  several kinds of that candy, all in very unusual flavors like "pencil shavings", "vomit" and "toothpaste". No, I didn't look over at the Sample Bar to see if these and the other weird flavors were available for the tasting!

On our way back home, we visited the See's candy store in Downer's Grove, IL. See's is based in CA and is slowly making its way east. We first encountered them while visiting the San Francisco area several years ago. Immediately upon entering that store, we were greeted by an employee offering us a free sample, and it was love at first bite! We now order See's online for special occasions, but it's nice to visit one of their stores to avoid shipping costs.

I don't know if the See's sampling policy has changed, but the employee yesterday kept offering us samples while we were deliberating on our purchases. I finally tried one piece, while my husband and our daughter each had three or four.

A display case:

Some of the milk chocolates.

 

Getting ready for Easter!


My husband happily purchased two pounds of assorted dark chocolates, while our daughter and I got lesser amounts. I couldn't resist a 2 oz chocolate-walnut egg. 


Long live See's! If you love chocolates and come across one of their stores during your travels, you won't regret buying some!
 s